I’m a writer searching for
an outlet for my memoir, querying agents, gathering information on independent
presses, thinking of going indie—indie, the cool way to say self-publish. I
want an audience for my book, and that’s why I’ve driven nearly seventy miles
to hear Jason Allen Ashlock’s talk, Agents For Today’s Author, a talk sponsored
by Grub Street of Boston.
Jason stands at a podium
inside a YMCA on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s a warm
March evening. I shed my sweater, pull my blouse from my skin. Jason is young,
probably in his early thirties, looking younger, vibrant and energetic.
Intelligence and understanding pool in his deep brown eyes. He greets us,
warmly, then asks: “Is the traditional literary agent still viable?” A brief
pause before he answers. “No. Or not for very long.”
All of us in this audience
know publishing is in crisis, smaller catalogues, fewer bookstores, fewer books
sold. The industry is top heavy, investing somewhere in the range of $300,000
to bring a book to market. What if the book doesn’t sell? Returns flow back to
the warehouse. No wonder agents tell me they’re only selling celebrity memoir
or memoir with a strong enough hook which generally translates to drug
addiction, alcohol addiction or dead babies. Why? Because they’re pre-sold.
And that’s where the digital
revolution comes in. “Digital,” Jason says, “shifts the value chain to a value
web.” The agent used to be the way a writer reached her reader. The chain was
linear, writer, agent, publisher, distributor, book store, reader. Now, a
writer can reach her reader in multiple ways, and because of this, agents are
squeezed. Some have left the business. Some are charging fees. Some are serving
as their clients agent and publisher. Others, like Jason, are changing the look
of the traditional agency, becoming involved with design and marketing, moving
from the background into an open explosive force. Jason says, “An agent’s job
is to manage the possible in the digital space.”
And in this shifting digital
world, Jason tells this audience of writers that we will need to become our own
agents for a while. This is a spin on the advice we’ve been give for a while
now with a difference. Jason is suggesting that agents get involved in helping
writers launch their books in a new way. Is that way really new? Take my
memoir. I’ve published excerpts, one winning a prestigious prize, in my quest
for audience and a platform. Jason is suggesting that before an agent takes a
book to a publisher, that agent might find digital ways to launch a writer’s
work, perhaps by asking that writer for an eBook or perhaps an excerpt on
various sites to create a buzz. Not so different from my traditional publishing
in the literaries. But—in order for Jason to take on a client who writes a
literary memoir, such as mine, he said when we spoke briefly after his talk, he
needs to believe there’s a large audience out there for that book. The old
catch 22? Not quite. I believe there’s more flexibility in this new model. So,
Jason, expect my query.
